www.grammarly.com/Grammar_Check Just like a spell check, this site helps those students who need to edit their papers before turning them in to me.

ON DEMAND PROMPT INFORMATION (from Ms. Williams)

FYI-I went to the NAEP website to see if I could find some model prompts for on-demand writing and found the prompt that was used to create the first on-demand practice for 11th graders. They (whoever it actually was that created the prompt distributed by the district) merely changed "essay" to "informative/explanatory text" and "argue" to "explain."

Here is the original prompt from the website:

Who are our heroes? The media attention given to celebrities suggests that these people are today's heroes. Yet ordinary people perform extraordinary acts of courage every day that go virtually unnoticed. Are these people the real heroes?

Write an essay in which you define heroism and argue who you think our heroes really are—mass-media stars, ordinary people, or maybe both. Be sure to use examples of specific celebrities, other people you have heard or read about, or people from your own community to support your position.

So the problem is whoever made these changes doesn't realize that you can not merely change those few words and think you are asking students to write an informative/explanatory piece.